


No Masks

by bowlingfornerds



Series: long fics [4]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Journalism AU, Multi, Superheroes, article, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 01:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5073394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowlingfornerds/pseuds/bowlingfornerds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It turns out that they’re more average than we would expect; under all their powers and stunts, they’re regular humans, with regular lives.</p><p>The Seven are superheroes and here's how that goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Masks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Owlgirl517](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlgirl517/gifts).



> So this is my first ever Percy Jackson fan fic, so please tell me what you think in the comments down below. (I have written a load of The 100, though, if that's any use.)
> 
> This fic wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for tumblr user xpegasusuniverse for the prompt/suggestion and pjoheadcannonsandaus for letting me write this after they thought up all the awesome superhero names and powers. You guys are awesome, and in that honour it's dedicated to you both - I hope you like it.

When I met the newest supers on the block, I didn’t expect them not to be wearing masks. I was ready for that secret-identity bullshit that we’ve been fed since the beginning of the superhero era. Of course, there are those who tend to cover their faces – like Multi-Girl, AreShe, Heart Breaker, to name a few. But, The Seven? Those three separate superhero teams who recently joined into one ultimate badass crime-fighting force?

Yeah, they don’t wear masks.

At first, I thought the man who greeted me was just someone who worked for them; tall, ruggedly handsome in the classic American Football high school jock, kind of way – but with glasses and a rye expression on his face like he couldn’t believe I would take time out of my day to grace him with my presence. I thought he was a personal assistant – a middle man; someone who would tell me that The Seven were unavailable and I would be consulting the article with him; someone who I expected to piss me off to no extent.

Turns out, he’s Wind Storm.

Wind Storm, if I remember rightly (and my Google search says I do), was first spotted on the scene a year and a half ago; his debut stunt was the cliché saving-an-aeroplane-from-crashing trick. However, considering he saved nearly three hundred lives that day, with his flight, I find it quite difficult to complain.

Wind Storm greeted me like I was an old friend, before nodding me into the café, where they’d stretched out across two sofas, surrounding a coffee table – rather _Friends_ style, if you ask me – only to realise that they’d booked the entire place. When I asked about the lack of other customers, Wind Storm just shrugged with a smile.

“We know the owner,” was all he said, and Mr D.’s Coffee suddenly felt less like a tiny (slightly dirty) coffee shop on a corner in down town Manhattan, and more like an underground base, where pulling the right book out of the shelf could unearth an entire lair – which would practically _force_ my editors to give me the front cover of this episode of _Super Weekly_.

The first thing I noticed, when I sat down, was that I may have been meeting The Seven, but there were definitely eight supers in front of me, all dressed in spandex and boots. I voiced this with a raised eyebrow and one of the nearest supers; lovely, blonde like Wind Storm – possibly related, I wondered – nodded down to the opposite armchair, at the other end of the coffee table. Wise Girl had pointed out Ghost King, dressed in black with his staff that practically _screamed say the wrong thing and I kill you_. When I asked if he was joining The Seven, Ghost King, himself, snorted.

“More like an honorary member,” he drawled.

“Saved our asses a couple of times,” Natural Disaster; his arm around Wise Girl’s shoulders; grinned.

“More than a couple,” Ghost King retorted.

“You forget,” Wise Girl immediately replied. “If we hadn’t saved you in the first place, you wouldn’t have even gotten the _chance_ to save us.” Their back-and-forth is all friendly, I could tell by the smirks and rolling of eyes of the other supers that sat around us, and, of course, I asked what she meant by them saving Ghost King originally.

“He was totally getting mauled by Manticore when he was like, twelve?” Natural Disaster explained, raised eyebrow at the King. May I just mention that Natural Disaster makes himself sound to be a very unlucky fellow in the looks-department, just going by his name, but he’s actually one of the most attractive men I’ve ever had the chance to look at; all black, ruffled hair and sea green eyes. He also has the perpetual aura of someone who’s constantly itching to go surfing – which, probably isn’t all that relevant, but still. “A-Wise Girl and I took it down for him – or, mainly just me-“ Wise Girl backhanded his chest at that and I couldn’t help but notice the affectionate smile she gave him anyway.

“I was incapacitated,” she admitted, rolling her eyes.

“Extremely,” Disaster agreed. “But even when he kept trying to run away from us and leave us behind, he couldn’t help but agree that we’re actually pretty great, and entirely know more about the hero-thing than he does.” Ghost King just rolled his eyes.

Out in the open, all eight of these supers wear masks, but – for some strange reason – none of them did for me. Ghost King looks exactly like you imagine him to under all the darkness that constantly shrouds his face (he _does_ have features, contrary to popular belief who consider him to be as faceless and unapproachable as Slenderman, himself). The King is pale-skinned and dark-eyed; a mop of black hair and a couple tiny braids tied into it – which I personally consider Silver Tongue, sitting nearby, to have done; considering her hair is almost constantly wearing matching ones. He’s wearing all black, still, and matched with his staff (glowing purple orb on top, even when resting and drinking what seems to be strong, bitter, black coffee) Ghost King is as daunting as you would assume him to be.

Considering I’ve been given the unbelievable chance to spend the day with these people, I decide that I want to get all the stories, all the dirt that I can – and I was expecting to fight them over it. However, The Seven plus Ghost King seem more than happy to offer up anything and everything they’ve got; only shrouding particular aspects, like names and locations. It’s quite well arranged, if you ask me.

Wind Storm sat, much like Natural Disaster does, with his arm around one of the girls. This girl, however, is – as guessed to be by the public – of Native American dissent (I asked her, she said ‘Cherokee’ and proceeded to tell me her favourite story about a dead skeleton dog that I didn’t completely understand) and she’s the epitome of beautiful. If we thought Heart Breaker – the girl who has been on the scene for as long as we can remember, with the ability to control love and desire – was attractive, well you should lay your eyes on Silver Tongue. It almost burned, I’m sure, to look at her.

Blessed with cogitokinesis – thought manipulation – I was a little nervous to be near her, considering she could entirely change the interview into something else. But, ever understanding, Silver just smiled.

“I don’t use it unless I’m fighting,” she promised. “It feels really bad, otherwise. As a kid, I used to use it all the time; get out of homework, people would give me stuff for free, often I managed to persuade people to just _give_ me their cars – but that’s a different life.” So, she sounded like a bit of a teenage delinquent. “Of course I was,” she grinned. “So was Fire Boy, over there.” Fire Boy, Latino with what seemed to be smudges of dirt on his face rolled his eyes. “It was how we met; two teenage delinquents against the world.”

“And Wind Storm,” Fire Boy added.

“And Wind Storm,” Silver agreed with a nod. “He wasn’t a delinquent, but he totally followed us around anyway.”

The Seven started off as three individual groups, I found out. I had originally assumed as much, but it feels different, having the situation explained to me by Mist-O-Fied, herself. (For the record, absolute beauty of a human; dark skin and contrasting caramel-golden hair, matching eyes; it’s as if people are just _granted_ beauty alongside the powers – which, well, is a working theory; I think Malcom Six has been discussing this for quite some time).

“Shifter and I met when we were about fourteen,” she explained, her words elegant and uttered so quietly I had to lean in to hear her. “We trained together, grew up together after that. But I’d met Admiral Idiot over there, first – our families were friends but we’d always kept our powers from one another. I met Shifter when that idiot was shipped out, after he set, like, his third foster home on fire.” Fire Boy had the decency to look ashamed. As Mist-O-Fied spoke, I noticed her sending affectionate looks towards Shifter, sitting by her side. While they were not as obviously in love as the two other couples in the group (Wise Disaster and Silver Storm are canon and it is beautiful), I noticed it in that moment; they were quieter about it, but I could be sure that they loved just as fiercely as the others.

“She was the first one I ever told about the shape shifting,” Shifter admitted. “She told me then about her invisibility and the whole visual manipulation-dealio. The friendship was pretty important in helping us train, as well.” Aside the sentiment and cute looks between them, Shifter is just as huge as you think he is. I imagine he was once a smaller Canadian-Asian man – but today he is practically a beast; I assume his changes into lions and elephants are effecting him by this point, because while the others in the group are either skinny and lanky, or tall and lean, he is broad and strong; almost pure muscle I’m guessing.

It’s almost comical to see him sitting next to the tiny girl that is Mist-O-Fied.

I wondered, though, how it would have changed things if Fire Boy and Mist had told each other about their powers earlier on. Fire Boy just shrugged.

“Probably not a lot – I would have still caused fires, anyway. I messed up a lot as a kid. But it meant that I got to meet Silver Tongue and Wild Storm, anyway. Fifteen-“ he adds when I ask what age that was. “Storm’s almost a year older, though. It was pretty great, when I found out about their powers, too.”

When I asked how he found out, Fire Boy just laughed and Silver Tongue sighed. “I fell into the Grand Canyon,” she admitted. “Superman, here, literally _flew_ down to save me – some awful type of trust exercise, I guess.” After that, it seems that they learnt together before meeting the others only five months ago, before joining into one team in the past three. On Disaster’s side, though, the team seems to have been going on for a lot longer.

“We were twelve,” Disaster told me. “I just fought off Minotaur with Goat Guy-“ Yes, that superhero whose powers are literally _just_ jumping and controlling music (yes, you can find him not fighting crime, but instead fighting global warming; usually busking on the side of the street or helping people fetch their Frisbees from trees in Central Park).

(Yes, he did get my neighbour’s cat down from a tree once, and yes it was a magical moment.)

“And I basically passed out. Wise Girl’s there when I wake up, and you know what the first words she ever says to me are? _You drool when you sleep_.”

“Romantic,” I drawled. Wise Girl had laughed, though, and Disaster just sighed.

“She saved my ass multiple times after that though, even though she didn’t actually like me for the first year or so.” I waited for Wise Girl to deny it, but she didn’t say anything, just twisted a lock of Disaster’s hair around her finger, absently. “We started dating when we were sixteen, though?”

“His sixteenth birthday,” she corrected. Disaster rolled his eyes at that. “Then we met Mist and Shifter about a year or so after; or, well, Kelp Head did, and left me to trail after him, cleaning up all of his messes.” I never thought it would be possible for a man, literally sitting comfortably in spandex, to look sheepish – but, there he was.

“I met them by accident,” he explained. “Lost after one too many fights-“

“On the other side of the country,” Wise Girl interrupted.

“And they helped me not die.”

“We’re good at that,” Shifter agreed with a nod.

“So we teamed up unofficially,” Disaster continued. “If we were both around, we’d fight together, if not, we wouldn’t. It was only about a year ago, or so, that we actually just decided to be a team together.”

“Goat Guy left us, though,” Wise Girl added, as if I hadn’t already dropped coins into his ukulele case only the day before.

“Still my best friend,” Disaster said. “But he’s found his calling and it’s not beating people up.”

Without the masks, I notice, that they’re being incredibly vulnerable. Even if they pulled them out to put on for the photo, their identities could be at serious risk – especially if I could pick them out, out of a line up. They were all striking in their own ways, but I noticed that it was their dynamic that made them even more so.

There wasn’t an outright, obvious competition between Natural Disaster and Wind Storm, but they’re both very powerful, and both were the defacto leaders of their own individual teams, before joining together. They were still respectful, though; neither of them talked over one another, and it seems that they’ve managed to get to the point of finishing each other’s sentences, within only a short amount of time. When I pointed this out, Wise Girl scoffed.

“It took P-Disaster and I almost _five_ _years_ to get to that point,” she told me. “With them, a week and a half and they’re ‘bro-ing’ out on the sofa, have their own secret handshake and are _wearing each other’s clothes_.”

If I hadn’t already hoped for there to be a serious bromance within The Seven, I would’ve been disappointed. But, really, that was exactly what I had wanted to hear, from the interview.

And even with that little power-struggle, which I’m sure is going on in the background, it also seems like the entire group will listen to Wise Girl, in just about any situation, or whoever seems to be the specialist of the subject.

For example, when the topic of relationships came up, it seemed that Silver Tongue was the one they referred to the most – besides Heart Breaker, who Fire Boy mentioned approximately twelve times in three minutes. (Don’t think I didn’t notice him stumbling over her name, either; I definitely heard the ‘Ca’ that he would say before her super name, just like I heard the other little slip-ups the group made.)

Fire Boy, also, was the number one problem-starter and causer, it seemed. If a washing machine was broken, it was definitely going to be him who was going to fix it (metal manipulation probably helps a lot, there) but it was also very likely to have been him to break it in the first place.

Disaster mentioned at one point about he and Wise Girl’s pet dog – referred to as O’Leary – but while they’re the only pet-owners of the group, the undeniable source of all information animal had to be Shifter, who, at my request, turned into a dog, just to prove he could. He even jumped into Mist-O-Fied’s lap, and it was almost definitely the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. (“You’re so light in this form,” Mist cooed to Shifter, in dog-form. “You should stay this size because you’re actually horrifically heavy otherwise.”)

 

While I sat with them, I noticed that the quietest of the group was undoubtedly Ghost King, at the end. He seemed content to just watch the entire interview fly past him, while he sat around in a world of his own. He only moved, after the initial interaction, when a phone went off.

Because, breaking news, superheroes own phones.

I originally thought that he was the angriest, darkest, possibly most depressing person to ever live – partially proven by the fact that he almost gave off an aura of pure darkness (or maybe that was his staff, I don’t know). But the smile I saw when he pulled out his phone (strangely, it had a rainbow across it, and suddenly everything I knew in my life was a lie) completely flipped me.

“Ooh,” Fire Boy cooed, leaning over the arm of the sofa to try and look at the message. Ghost King turned his phone away, rolling his eyes at Fire Boy’s antics. “Can I have three guesses to who texted you?”

“No,” King replied. “You already know.”

“True,” Fire Boy grinned. “But I want to guess anyway.”

“That takes the point out of guessing,” Silver chipped in. I, by the way, watched in awe.

“Okay, how about I make the wrong guesses the first two times.”

“What’s the point in that?”

“I want to name drop,” Fire Boy replied to King as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. He gestured with his head towards me and my tape recorder; my note book sitting on my lap with the only note that was written: ‘RAINBOW PHONE CASE???????’ King then sighed, as if he had no choice.

“Fine.”

“Was it… Hades?” Naturally, my eyebrows shot right up at the mention of the Big Three. If you don’t know – and who doesn’t, really – The Big Three are the most powerful of The Gods, made of a large group (and always expanding) of supers with the powers of the gods of mythology, fighting mostly for good. They don’t fight all that much anymore, but they were massive in the eighties, so hearing one of their names now – and one of The Big Three at that – is basically what I needed to make the cover with this story.

“Hades?” I questioned. Ghost King nodded, rolling his eyes.

“I know him,” he shrugged. “Is that really a surprise?” When I thought about it, it wasn’t. King looked almost identical to Hades with their outfits and powers – it made sense, I guess. When I asked how well he knew him, he just huffed. “Too well,” he told me, and that was the end of that.

Fire Boy kept guessing.

“How about, Multi-Girl?” I wasn’t as surprised this time – Multi-Girl and Ghost King have been seen fighting together a number of times, even with the adamant comments in the press, stating they prefer to work alone.

“No,” King replied. “But my last text was from her.” This was a little more surprising. I asked how well they knew each other and King shrugged. “Best friend,” he replied. “Begrudgingly,” he added. Even though we were in a tense game of _who-texted-Ghost-King_ (in which all other players besides me knew the answer) I had to ask how they met.

“It was pretty accidental,” King replied, not really caring. “I was making sure _these_ idiots didn’t die,” he nodded towards Natural Disaster and Wise Girl. “And she was there making sure _those_ idiots didn’t die.” This time he nodded towards Shifter, Mist and Storm. I had to smile at that. Then I asked if they were the group Mums and he smirked. “I may be the youngest, but yes. We probably are.”

You heard it here first, folks, Multi-Girl and Ghost King are the types of people to bring water to parties and make sure their friends are still eating and showering if they’re busy during exam season.

“Right, if it’s not Hades or Mutli-Girl,” Fire Boy continued, pretending it was difficult to guess who had texted Ghost King – multiple times by this point, I should add, because King was responding to them as we spoke. “Then, it’s just _got_ to be Life Giver.” I almost laughed out loud at that one, but then King said:

“Ding ding ding, we have a winner,” in the most dry voice I’ve ever heard, and I held it in. For me – and most certainly the _Super Weekly_ readers, too – it’s difficult to imagine Life Giver who is very literally a _ray of sunshine_ , being friends with Ghost King; physical embodiment of darkness. So I asked how they knew each other and King snorted. “Walking Disaster over there introduced us,” he told me, nodding towards Disaster who looked entirely amused at the nickname. “But that was quite a few years ago. We’re closer now, though.”

“ _Very_ _close_ ,” Disaster agreed, in an insinuating voice, winking at me for extra measure. Suddenly, the rainbow phone case made a little more sense, as did the smile King was sending to his phone at that moment. No one directly said it out loud, so I’m not going to either – but I just think it’s a little ironic is all, considering ‘ghost’ and ‘life’ are practically opposites, and kings aren’t known as very _giving_ people.

Even so, I wish them all the best.

 

Over the course of the day, I discovered a few eating habits, too – and I’m sure if I were able to watch them for a week, I would find more. I arrived at ten AM and departed at eight PM, giving me a good ten hours with The Seven and Ghost King, and I noticed that in the entire time I was there, Natural Disaster only ate pizza.

And I’m fairly sure Mr D.’s Coffee doesn’t even _sell_ pizza.

Ghost King didn’t eat at all; just drank copious amounts of black coffee, one large mug at a time. I watched him make one of them, and noticed that it was probably the strongest coffee ever to be made, with practically a full table spoon of coffee granules in there.

Fire Boy has a thing about eating with his mouth open, and Mist seems perfectly content to throw some of her food at him, across the table, when she notices. Fire Boy tries to catch said pieces of food in his mouth.

He succeeds once.

Wind Storm seems fairly able to eat entirely one handed – possibly for the rest of his life – considering his other is either around Silver Tongue’s shoulders or holding her hand. Silver Tongue, on the other hand, has a little more difficulty; the filling falling out of her sandwich on more than one occasion – but she’s a trooper, and stubborn, too; refusing to let go of his hand and just takes twice as long to get through her meal.

What I did find interesting though, and had to ask about, was Natural Disaster’s drink.

I thought it was particularly comical that he chose to drink water, considering his powers are creating earthquakes and hydrokinesis – or, controlling liquid. But that didn’t seem to be the most interesting part, no – it was artificially dyed blue. Whenever he went to get his own drink, he came back with regular water – but if anyone else did it, blue. Always blue.

The time I followed them up to help get the drinks, I even watched as Shifter dripped a couple drops of blue food dye into the glass of water, before taking it over. And, eventually, I had to ask about it.

Natural Disaster looked at his drink as if he’d never seen it before; as if he really hadn’t noticed it was blue.

“I guess I’m used to it,” he explained. “As a kid, I had this awful step-dad. He was definite that there were no blue foods, one time when I asked for some. Blue was my favourite colour and I was seven; so it was pretty crushing. My Mum, though – literal angel – made it her mission from there on out to feed me as much blue food as possible. We had so many bottles of food dye at home, and she’d bring back every blue sweet she’d find. I ate blueberries almost every day, and my birthday cake was always blue, too.” I couldn’t help but smile; it was possibly one of the most touching stories I’d ever heard. “So, when these guys found out about it, they noticed I didn’t eat blue food as much anymore – I’m not as determined as my Mum, I guess; and so they just got into the habit, too. So it’s this big thing, I guess – blue food.”

I was completely floored, unable to say anything else, but Disaster didn’t seem to mind because instead of reaching out to the table to pick up his artificially dyed water, he just flicked a finger out towards it and a globule of liquid popped out from the glass. I watched, enraptured, as he pointed the finger slowly towards himself, and the water followed, into his mouth. He swallowed and didn’t even notice that I was amazed by this.

Likewise, everyone else acted as if it was the most normal thing they’d seen all day.

Personally, the most normal thing about the entire meeting was Wind Storm admitting that he liked country music. And let’s be honest - that’s never normal.

 

Eventually, I have to ask them about their masks. It was surreal; seeing their faces when all I could see otherwise were pieces of plastic, instead. For the past few years, we, as the public, have been watching them, not knowing about their cheekbones (Silver’s are to _die_ for) or their scars (Storm has one above his lip), or even – in some cases – their hair colour (it wasn’t Photoshop – Natural Disaster and Wise Girl have matching strands of grey in their hair).

“There’s no real reason not to,” Disaster explained when I asked. “The mask is so people don’t know who we are, and so we can live normal lives – but that doesn’t work very well in a lot of cases.”

“My entire family knows I do this,” Wise Girl continued. “Extended and everything; my cousin’s super as well so it’s not a problem.” The others nod their agreement.

“It’s about keeping our families safe, too,” Wind Storm added. “I mean, let’s be honest – this entire team is just a support group for dead relatives, but the few of us who have family left; well, there are bad people out there who want to hurt them, and we don’t really want that.”

“Like the Titans?” I couldn’t help but ask. Storm nodded seriously.

“Them and the Primordials are basically obsessed with attacking the family members, not the actual heroes,” Mist explained. “My Mum was taken by Gaia many years ago.”

"Mine, too,” Fire Boy told me.

"Their sister clan, The Giants took my grandmother,” Shifter added.

“That weird-ass robot Talos killed my sister - she was a Hunter, too,” Ghost King nodded.

Suddenly the masks made sense – we’ve all understood this well enough in the past, but as they continued to explain, I found out that the deaths took place, mostly before they became established heroes. While they were still young and training, the super villains of the world decided to try and destroy them. Keeping families safe only ever occurred to us when watching films like the original _Spider-Mans_ , in which MJ or Peter’s aunt is threatened; before now, I had never considered supers’ family members to be in danger before the supers had actually _gotten_ _around_ to saving anyone.

“We did extensive research on you, though,” Silver added at the end, which was their explanation to why they felt like they could trust me with their identities, but not their names.

“ _I_ did the research,” Wise Girl corrected. “You sat around braiding people’s hair and tried to make it a group thing.” I snorted at this while Silver rolled her eyes.

“At least Ghosty kept his in,” Silver replied, nodding towards The King.

“Death Breath looks better with them in than the rest of us do,” Fire Boy defended.

“Thanks _Repair Boy_ ,” King replied.

“No problem _Zombie Dude_.”

“This is immature,” Shifter interrupted.

“Sure is, _Chinese Canadian Baby Man_ ,” Disaster replied with a grin. Shifter laughed at that, and I was sensing an inside joke that I was not going to be let in on.

“Come on _Seaweed Brain_ , don’t join in,” Wise Girl told him rolling her eyes.

“Sure, _Owl Head_ – no problem.”

The entire exchange was more immature than you would expect from New York’s heroes, but at the same time, none of them looked older than twenty five – this was probably the lives they lived when they weren’t saving our lives. But after they laughed, the conversation turned back to their masks.

“Mine’s literally just a piece of plastic,” Disaster replied, holding his up. “I used to have some fancy shit that Fire Boy fixed up for me – but they kept breaking and the ones my brother made for me were too heavy. Plastic is cheap and I buy them by the crate load.”

I asked what he meant by that. “You know those masks you can buy in tourist shops? The ones modelled on our ones?” I nodded. “Well I just buy those, instead. They’re cheap and loads are always in stock, anyway.”

“The news said the other day that his masks were the most sold,” Wise Girl mused. “He was on his high horse about being the most popular, but I guess this explains it.” Disaster just grinned and she continued. “Fire Boy made my mask,” she explained. “Owl design and stuff – which is just a running joke because of Athena, from The Gods?” I definitely started to wonder if all of The Seven were friends with old-time superheroes.

“The masks are made from specific metal manipulation,” Fire Boy shrugged. “And I very rarely have to wear one, so I make other people’s instead – if you’re a super in need of a mask, I’m the guy to call.” I asked how many supers out there were wearing his masks. “Large portion,” he admitted. “I make them for just about anyone now; The Hunters wear them, too, actually, even if they don’t like me as a person. Me, though, I literally just set my entire body on fire, because the masks irritate my skin.”

“Precious baby,” Silver cooed sarcastically.

“Shadow manipulation,” Ghost King used as the explanation for his mask. You may already know that his face is just black, when in public; as if all the darkness in the world joined together over his features. “Took a while to get right, but I just focus it heavily over my face – I can see fine. Took about a year or two to manage to do it so I barely have to think about it anymore.” I asked him about teleportation while he was at it. “Yeah – that took some time. I ended up in China more than once.”

“My mask’s basically just a part of the outfit,” Silver explained, pulling up the hood. It worked perfectly, because the second it was up, I could no longer see her features properly; just a blur. “Thought Manipulation, same as Ghosty; the minute the hood’s up, anyone in my range has their thoughts blurred whenever they look at me. Before, I just used an actual mask from Fire Boy – but when we met Misty, she taught me this instead.”

“Very literally just a thin sheet of metal that fits my face perfectly,” Storm shrugged. “Curtosy of Repair Boy, over there.”

“That’s Supreme Commander, to you,” Fire Boy shot back with a smile.

“I don’t even wear a mask when I’m fighting,” Shifter replied. “I mean, if you can want a lion to be wearing a mask, then sure – but I really don’t think anyone’s going to specifically strike down all the animals at the zoo just in case I’m one of them.” I had to laugh at that – Shifter had a point.

“I use the whole visual manipulation thing,” Mist explained. “But I like the fabric kind of mask, anyway.”

“Very Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle,” I commented. She nodded with a grin.

“That’s what I was going for.”

 

Overall, I noticed, The Seven and Ghost King are a family; fiercely protective over one another and yet still just regular adults; living normally as if they weren’t on the news that evening, having stopped a robbery a few streets away. They had their quirks and differences, but the amount of love in the room was palpable.

When I asked about their powers, they gave me the same rundown that they had done in the newspapers when they're asked. They shrugged as if it were nothing and moved on. When I asked about other friends they had in the superhero world, such as AreShe with her super strength, they talked about their friendship with them, not about how kick-ass they were, saving the world. It was as if the powers played very little into their everyday lives; they were supers when they needed to be, not all the time.

They let small things drop; Disaster and Wise Girl are engaged, Fire Boy has been working on getting Heart Breaker to go out with him for almost three years, Storm’s sister is the lieutenant of The Hunters – but it didn’t seem like a lot to them. It was all very average.

I learnt that they had flaws, just like everyone. It was mentioned that Disaster was too loyal, and King held grudges like nobody’s business, Wise Girl, with her mind reading and telekinesis, was exceptionally prideful.

It turns out that they’re more average than we would expect; under all their powers and stunts, they’re regular humans, with regular lives.

But, I assume, that’s what we were all hoping for, anyway.

At the end of the day, we left together, their masks on and me thanking them profusely for meeting me. Ghost King melted into the shadows of the shop, vanishing from sight entirely, and Wind Storm placed his arm around Silver Tongue, lifting her up into the air with a quick wave. They disappeared over the top of the buildings and out of sight. Shifter turned into what looked suspiciously like a Pegasus (literal winged horse) and Mist-O-Fied climbed on with a smile. As they soared off into the sky, Fire Boy sent jets of flames from his hand, propelling him up like a jet pack, and before long they had both disappeared.

Natural Disaster and Wise Girl left last, saying their last goodbyes and thank yous, alongside mine, and joking that this article better not point out all their bad points (like the part in which Wise Girl admitted that Disaster leaves the toilet seat up and forgets to do the dishes at least four times a week). They, actually, just walked off down the road; the street strangely quietly for evening, and I heard car doors shut, before watching a car round the corner and pass me, a woman with blonde hair and a man with black, suspiciously in the front. They only made it to the end of the street before the window opened and the woman’s hand stuck out; the car floating into the air and over the buildings at the end of the road.

I felt exceptionally normal, walking home after that; having to sit on the subway and walk up the six flights of stairs to my apartment.

But, then again, I’m not super. Not like them, anyway.

 

 _R. Dare has written for_ Super Weekly _for three years, and her work has featured in_ Vogue _,_ Elle _and_ VanityFair _. You can find out more about this encounter with supers on her blog: www.RElizabethDare.com_

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!
> 
> Please remember to hit the kudos button, and the comments are always open for your thoughts - I love to hear what you guys think, and I would love to know if I should continue this universe or if there's anything that needs changing. Thanks.
> 
> pjoheadcannonsandaus' run down of the powers and names:
> 
> Jason  
> Name: Wind Storm  
> Powers: Flying and Aerokinesis (controlling air)  
> Percy  
> Name: Natural Disaster  
> Powers: Hydrokinesis (controlling water) and creating earthquakes  
> Annabeth  
> Name: Wise Girl  
> Powers: Mind reading and telekinesis (levitation)  
> Piper  
> Name: Silver Tongue  
> Powers: Cogitokinesis (thought manipulation)  
> Hazel  
> Name: Mist-o-fied  
> Powers: Invisibility and manipulate’s people’s vision  
> Frank  
> Name: The Shifter  
> Powers: Shape shifting  
> Leo  
> Name: Flame Boy  
> Powers: Pyrokinesis (controlling fire) and Ferrokinesis (metal manipulation)  
> Nico  
> Name: Ghost King  
> Powers: Shadow Manipulation and teleportation  
> Will  
> Name: Life Giver  
> Powers: Photokinesis (controlling light) and healing  
> Reyna  
> Name: Multi-Girl  
> Powers: Potentikinesis (manipulation of super powers)  
> Clarisse  
> Name: AreShe  
> Powers: Super Strength  
> Grover  
> Name: Goat Guy  
> Powers: Symphokinesis (music manipulation) and can jump really high  
> Calypso  
> Name: Heart Breaker  
> Powers: Amokinesis (love/desire manipulation)


End file.
